Cordoning off information behind a wall of new privacy rights violates principles of free speech, threatening to shrink the total domain of freely flowing information.

Humanity's established freedoms have always included, with only narrow exceptions, the right of human beings to learn about one another. In the course of a single day, an individual collects an enormous amount of information about people he encounters--their age and appearance, their manner of speaking and dressing, and their actions and preferences. Except under rare circumstances, he will feel no obligation to ask anyone's permission before relaying the information he has collected to a third party, however embarrassing that might be to the subject of their conversation ("Did you notice that Bob Jones's suit was absolutely covered with dog hair?").

B. THE FIRST AMENDMENT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT BUT IS ALSO VERY VULNERABLE

The First Amendment, which protects freedom of the press, freedom of speech and freedom of religion, among other rights, is the most important. Can you imagine an America without those rights? Yet, surveys show that many Americans believe the press has too much freedom, that campaign reform is more important than free speech and that school prayer does not offend the Constitution.

So far, most of the major assaults on the First Amendment have been turned back, but the only thing we can be sure of is that the attacks will continue.

Freedom of speech is itself an end because the human community is in large measure defined through speech; freedom of speech is therefore intrinsic to individual dignity. This is particularly so in a democracy like our own, in which the autonomy of each individual is accorded equal and incommensurate respect. As the Court stated in Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15, 24 (1971): "The constitutional right of free expression is powerful medicine in a society as diverse and populous as ours. It is designed and intended to remove governmental restraints from the arena of public discussion, putting the decision as to what views shall be voiced largely into the hands of each of us, in the hope that use of such freedom will ultimately produce a more capable citizenry and more perfect polity and in the belief that no other approach would comport with the premise of individual dignity and choice upon which our political system rests."